Millie Ravening is a young player with big ambitions.
And she says she’s ready to fulfil all of them with Burnley – the club she rejoined in the summer after they began their move towards full-time professional football.
“I just wanted to focus on playing football every day and getting myself to a a point where I feel like I’ve improved,” she tells SheKicks.net. “Being here every day, that will help massively.
“And Burnley want to go as far as possible. They want to be in the WSL one day and that aligns with me.”
The midfielder had spent last season with Stoke City under their then-head coach Marie Hourihan, and got herself into exceptional goalscoring form – with 26 goals in 31 appearances. She admits that she’s a player who thrives when she’s feeling strong and settled.
“Last year when I was at Stoke, Marie helped massively with my confidence and this year I just feel like I’ve got my confidence as well.
“If I’m scoring goals and I’m doing well and [the coaches] think I’m doing well, it just gives me confidence and I know that I can just play with a free mind.”
She doesn’t strictly set herself goalscoring targets: “Last year I think I overachieved a bit!” she admits. “I didn’t think I’d score as many.
“I want to be up there with the goals. I know there’s a lot of strikers who are up at the top, but there’s nothing to say that a midfielder can’t be up there as well. I want to do as well [this season] as I did last year with the goals – try and score as many as I can!”
Millie Ravening: Burnley can’t afford to drop more points
Burnley currently sit second in the FA Women’s National League Northern Premier – and face leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday, 4th January to begin the second half of the season. It’s a close race for that top spot, with both teams unbeaten in the league this season – but Wolves are two points ahead.
“It is very tight – a bit too tight!” she says. “But that’s where we want to be. We want to be up near the top. We think we deserve to be up at the top. At the end of the year, we want to be at the top. That’s the aim. The girls, they all know what the aim is, and we all fight each week to show why we should be at the top.”
Ravening says the Burnley squad are approaching Sunday as they would any other game.
“We all know that it is massive and that we can’t afford to be dropping any more points. We’ll use that fire and bring it into Sunday. We’ll just fight for each other and we know what’s at stake, so we’ll all put our heads together and hopefully get a good result.”
The Clarets would, of course, prefer to be top, but Ravening thinks that second place at this point in the season could also be to their advantage.
“Us being close second, I think that might make them feel a bit on edge and we just know what we need to do – hopefully we can do that,” she says.
Ravening: Manchester United cup match is massive
It is a big January all round – Burnley will travel to Manchester United in the fourth round of the Women’s FA Cup. Ravening – who scored in the 7-0 third-round win over Peterborough United – is a Manchester girl herself, and has played on both sides of the city previously, making the cup draw extra-special.
“It’s massive. I’ve had a lot of people message me saying that they’re going to come. Yeah, it is big. It’s good to draw such a big team and away as well. Hopefully there’s a few fans, bringing a nice atmosphere.”
And she doesn’t fear that it will split the team’s focus.
“We wanted to be in as many competitions as we could,” she says. “Getting far in the FA Cup’s important, and the League Cup, and the County Cup as well.
“Getting as many games and hopefully trophies under our belt – it’s brilliant and it’s good for confidence for the girls, winning things.
“But we’ve got our eye on the league definitely as well.”
